Amorphous materials combine the disordered structure of a liquid with the mechanical properties of a solid. These materials can be described in terms of a potential energy landscape, with thermodynamics and kinetics controlled by the minima and barriers on the landscape, respectively (C. A. Angell, J. Res. Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. 102, 171 (1997); P. G. Debenedetti, F. H. Stillinger, Nature 410, 259 (2001); F. H. Stillinger, Science 267, 1935 (1995)). Amorphous solids are usually prepared by cooling a liquid; however, accessing low energy states by this route is slow and impractical (M. D. Ediger, C. A. Angell, S. R. Nagel, J. Phys. Chem. 100, 13200 (1996); D. J. Plazek, J. H. Magill, J. Chem. Phys. 45, 3038 (1966)). This is because the molecular motion in a liquid that avoids crystallization as it is cooled eventually becomes too slow to allow the molecules to find equilibrium configurations. This transition to a non-equilibrium state defines the glass transition temperature Tg. Glasses are “stuck” in local minima on the potential energy-landscape (P. G. Debenedetti, F. H. Stillinger, Nature 410, 259 (2001); F. H. Stillinger, Science 267, 1935 (1995)). Because glasses arethermodynamically unstable, lower energies in the landscape are eventually achieved through molecular rearrangements. However, this process is so slow that it is generally impossible to reach states deep in the landscape by this route.
Although-vapor deposition has also been used to produce amorphous systems, it is commonly reported that vapor-deposition creates low density glasses with low kinetic and thermodynamic stability compared to liquid-cooled glasses (F. Faupel et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 237 (2003); K. Ishii, H. Nakayama, T. Okamura, M. Yamamoto, T. Hosokawa, J. Phys. Chem. B 107, 876 (2003); K. Takeda, O. Yamamuro, H. Suga, J. Phys. Chem. 99, 1602 (1995)). Thus, a need exists for amorphous solids with improved stability and methods for making the same.